Protected by Criminal Law, Historical Memory of the Peoples of the Russian Federation of the World War II and the Great Patriotic War: Experience of Sociological Research
Shamsunov S.Kh., Merkur’ev V.V., Agapov P.V., Novikov A.V. Radchenko T.V., Sheveleva K.V. Protected by criminal law, historical memory of the peoples of the Russian Federation of the world war ii and the great patriotic war: experience of sociological research. Penitentiary Science, 2022, vol. 16, no. 2 (58), pp. 127–145. doi: 10.46741/2686-9764.2022.58.2.002.
Introduction: the article analyzes problems of falsification of historical facts and history of the Great Patriotic War. Nowadays, the international public debate is devoted to the role of the USSR, its army in World War II, their contribution to the victory over fascism, and significance of the results of the Great Patriotic War. Attempts to rewrite the history of the war, diminishing the importance of the Soviet army, are connected with the desire of certain Western countries to discredit the Russian Federation in the international arena. Russia, as the successor of the USSR, is obliged to preserve historical truth about events of the Second World War; therefore, the policy of protecting it is being carried out at the state level. In 2014, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation introduced liability for “falsification of historical information established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal”, but the norm is limited only to the facts established by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. In this regard, the study of criminal-legal aspects of protecting historical memory is relevant from the point of view of criminal legislation development. Purpose: to substantiate the expansion of criminal liability for falsification of historical information about events of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. Research results: in order to consider the proposed issue, the authors conducted a sociological study to identify respondents’ opinion on establishment of criminal protection of historical memory of the events of the Second World War and determined a vector of legislative initiatives afterwards. Conclusions: the ways to protect history of the Great Patriotic War require improvement of criminal law norms providing for liability for encroachments on historical heritage of the Russian Federation, in particular, by including in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation a new special norm capable of protecting not only the facts established by the International Military Tribunal, but also a number of others confirmed by official historical sources.
Keywords: criminal liability; World War II; Great Patriotic War; falsification of history; historical memory.
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